


Gravity

by technoxenoholic



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: But It's Fine He Has a Snuggle Buddy, I wrote this in less than a day, Insomnia, M/M, Outer Space, Scorponok Doesn't Like Them, Sleepy Cuddles, The Effects of Zero Gravity on the Mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15953639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technoxenoholic/pseuds/technoxenoholic
Summary: In the aftermath of their escape from Shockwave and the DJD, it isn't the fear of hunters that keeps Scorponok awake at night. Thankfully, he has Flame.





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vullet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vullet/gifts).



> The world needs more ScorpFlame, and by Primus, Vullet is doing his Gotdam Best to provide it. It's the least I could do to pitch in!

Most bots took gravity for granted. It was practically ever-present. Many were beings of such mass they created their own faint gravity where none was present. And even despite that, technological advancements of recent note—most courtesy of Decepticon science, born of the war—made artificial gravity so easy to create and so unobtrusive that it was easy for even the cleverest mech to forget none existed outside warships’ and freight carriers’ deflector shields.

But in the vacuum of space, with no solid ground beneath their pedes, the realization of the absence of gravity was a harsh and haunting one.

Backlit against the stars, the bright orange and magenta frame ahead of him was all Scorponok had to focus on to drive away the terror creeping in circles around his squeezing spark. Something nearly knocked them apart, and they clung to each other for stability in the swirling openness of space.

* * *

 

After their discovery by the Grand Architect, it wasn’t the fear of the DJD following them, finding them, that crept into Scorponok’s berth at night. It was that discomfiting, sickening,  _ floating _ feeling, of being too cold and too hot all at once, and of having nowhere and no way to turn or brace himself. He would shift against the berth and press back into it just to feel its solidity, pull extra tarps over himself just to feel the weight.

He’d lost enough of the weight of his frame by now that he felt, some nights, like he was shrinking away into that feeling. Even the silence hadn’t bothered him the way the weightlessness had, and it stuck with him, hunted him.

He barely recharged. He had to keep working, to ground himself, literally and emotionally. He took solace in the bright figure who stayed, stuck by his side. They seemed to gravitate together, even still, and neither minded.

* * *

 

When it was eventually Flame that joined him in his berth—said something about hearing a noise, or a voice, that was keeping him up—Scorponok welcomed the pleasant alternative to that gnawing emptiness. Despite everything Flame had been a solid, warm presence by his side since Garrus 9, and though Scorponok was loathe to trust just any mech… it was because of Flame’s warning about the DJD that he was still alive, he’d realized. He was grateful.

And after working together for the time between, sharing words and jokes and listening to Flame grow more and more confident as he rambled endlessly about all his brilliant ideas… Scorponok had grown  _ fond _ of the mech.

He didn’t even have to think about shifting over a little to allow Flame to join him.

But there still wasn’t much room on the berth with Scorponok taking up so much of it, so Flame tucked in close. He seemed hesitant to touch any part of Scorponok’s frame, though—he perched precariously on the edge of the berth, the thick cables affixed to his back lying out over empty air. Scorponok peered down at him and frowned.

“Come here,” he grumbled, and he looped an arm over Flame’s waist to pull the mech against his side.

Flame squawked. Scorponok paused, for a moment unsure. But then Flame shifted and buried his face against Scorponok’s chest, throwing an arm of his own over the much broader mech’s waist and curling one knee over his thigh. Relieved, Scorponok squeezed. Flame squeezed back. And they were quiet, for a moment, before Flame spoke up.

“I didn’t think, uh,” he started, and he lifted his helm. Scorponok blinked dimly back at the pretty blue optics that met his own through the dark. Flame reset his crackling vocalizer. “…Didn’t think you’d be the cuddly sort.”

Scorponok hummed, then gently pressed Flame’s face back into his chest and shut his optics. “I’m not,” he said, and his own vocalizer was off with exhaustion. “But I can make an exception.”

Relaxing was easier with a warm, solid weight curled against him under the tarps—clinging together the way they had in deep space, but this time the hands on each other’s plating were softer, less urgent and frightened. And as Flame’s vents steadied out and slowed as he slipped into recharge, Scorponok followed.


End file.
